Car seat credited with saving toddler in deadly crash

Deputies call it a miracle An Albuquerque toddler came out of a deadly car crash nearly unharmed The little boy s mom credits one thing for saving his life his car seat

You hear it from emergency officials all the time Child safety seats save lives Amanda Uhrig is a believer She says her car seat used properly is the main reason she didn t lose her son just before Thanksgiving

That he was safely in the car seat everything strapped down definitely saved his life she said If he hadn t have been in that car seat or if anything had been loose at all I think it would have been a different story

Uhrig can only describe her two-year-old son s survival as miraculous His babysitter 56-year-old Judith Bjorkman was driving west on I-40 Wednesday night when deputies say she collided head-on with a wrong-way driver

Katherin Cullin 56 was driving eastbound in the westbound lanes Both Cullin and Bjorkman died in the high-speed crash

The little boy was found alive strapped tightly in his car seat

He only had some bruising on his shoulders and his inner thigh and a nice little mark on his forehead said Uhrig Even the nurses at the hospital said that his angel was with him that night and I do believe that somebody was with him that night making sure he was okay

That s all he talked about was how he got to see the fire trucks and how fun it was to see the fire trucks So that s all he remembers she said

Deputies still don t know why Cullin was driving the wrong direction on I-40 that night They say there is no indication of drugs or alcohol in the systems of either driver but they are waiting for toxicology reports to come back

There is one thing deputies do know for sure

That car seat did save that child s life said Lt David Knowles of the Bernalillo County Sheriff s Office

The little boy was released from the hospital the same night as the crash and was even provided with a new car seat as part of a county program

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports child safety seats reduce deadly injuries to toddler by 54 percent so long as the seat is used properly You can have a free child safety seat inspected to make sure it is installed correctly and in good condition A list of locations is available here